Alisa Brownlee, ATP, CAPS blog offers recent articles and web information on ALS, assistive technology--augmentative alternative communication (AAC), computer access, and other electronic devices that can impact and improve the quality of life for people with ALS.
Email--abrownlee@alsa-national.org.
Any views or opinions presented on this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the ALS Association.

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Monday, November 19, 2012

Rosalind Picard, and other researchers at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are working to change the
perception that machines can't understand how people feel through novel uses of
sensors.

Picard, said the technology can help provide better
understanding of people who can't otherwise express how they are feeling
outwardly, such as children with autism who have a limited ability to speak.
She showed video of a girl with autism who was wearing electrodermal sensors,
along with a graph of the corresponding electrodermal activity data they
captured. As the child appeared to become agitated, the graph spiked; when the
child played on a swing, an activity thought to induce calm, the line leveled
out.

Picard said the most surprising discovery came when one
of her students took the sensors home over Christmas break to test them on his
brother who has autism. The data he captured showed an abnormally high peak in
electrodermal activity that Picard initially thought was due to a hardware
malfunction. She asked the student to check his notes to see what happened
during that time, and as it turned out, the spike occurred just before his
brother had a seizure.